


A Single Light

by Mez10000



Category: RWBY
Genre: Gen, Homelessness, Open to Interpretation, backstory prediction, characters untagged for artistic effect, mentions of mild blood and injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:34:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22191139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mez10000/pseuds/Mez10000
Summary: Snow covered the ground everywhere metal shards did not. Fires claimed some of the oily wreckage, whipped into a steady blaze by the winds howling across the tundra. Shouts were swallowed by the gale and uniformed men and women ran across the site.In the midst of this chaos, a woman struggled her way out from a pile of debris, hauling herself inch by agonizing inch across twisted and sharp fragments digging into her skin.
Kudos: 4





	A Single Light

Snow covered the ground everywhere metal shards did not. Fires claimed some of the oily wreckage, whipped into a steady blaze by the winds howling across the tundra. Shouts were swallowed by the gale and uniformed men and women ran across the site.

In the midst of this chaos, a woman struggled her way out from a pile of debris, hauling herself inch by agonizing inch across twisted and sharp fragments digging into her skin. Her hands were numb and aching by the time she fell into clear snow, but shakily, she pushed herself up onto her knees.

The snow beneath her was stained red. She stared down at herself. Perhaps once, the coat she was wearing could have been described as white, but the patchwork of bloodstains and chars spread across it now all but hid the original colour. The woman reached a hand to her head. It came away bloody.

A heavy footstep bought her attention back to her surroundings. A man in some kind of armour, carrying a gun. The woman watched warily as he ran forward, looked around, muttered something into an earpiece and ran forward again. He was paying special attention to the piles of wreckage, looking for something…or someone. 

The woman could see others around, they were too far away to see her yet, but it was only a matter of time before they closed in on her position. Injured and hopelessly outnumbered, she would be helpless to do anything to stop them from doing whatever they wished. She needed to hide, somehow, but the only things in the tundra were the piles of debris that she had just freed herself from.

Her eyes screwed shut as footsteps drew nearer, her hands covering her face, as if being unable to see would make her unable to be seen. She nearly did not notice the shiver of aura across her skin as the footsteps came to a stop, close to her head.

She cracked open an eye and would have cried out if her voice had not died in her throat. The man was standing not a foot in front of her, staring directly down at her. The woman shook, she had been discovered, and now…

“Nothing on the southern perimeter, either.”

She was close enough to hear the distant reply coming from the earpiece. “Head back to transport. A fresh storm is blowing in and there’s no use us all freezing to death to look for some bodies.”

The woman watched as the armoured man walked away, and frowned. She looked down at her hand, only to see nothing. She touched her arm - still definitely there, could still touch it, but nowhere to be seen. 

She shivered, ground her teeth together and pushed herself up onto invisible feet and staggered slowly in the direction the armoured man. She was unsteady and stumbling, and she couldn’t help carefully watching every armoured person to make sure they did ignore her. 

They all wore identical armour. Some kind of military or militia. She did not, so clearly she was not part of their group. What purpose could an armed force have to take an unarmed woman into the tundra? 

The soldiers were all getting onto airships and the woman snuck on and hid herself in a dark corner, not quite trusting this mysterious invisibility to keep her hidden. As the ship took off and streaked through the sky, she kept her ears open for any information she could get, though so much of the soldier’s chatter made no sense to her.

“I really thought the field test would go better. I mean…”

“Yeah, of all the missions we could be on, I wouldn’t have bet this one would be the one with the body count.”

“Do we know how bad yet?”

“At least two of the lead scientists. They were up close and personal when the thing…exploded. The rest…we’ll see how recovery goes. And squads three and four were on babysitting duty so they were hit hard, too.”

The flight went quickly, and the ships touched down in a small landing base in a steamy rundown city. The woman slipped off the ship in the middle of the commotion and made her escape into the city. There were lots of people here, and it would be easy to blend in and not attract attention…though the bloodstained coat would be a little conspicuous. She shrugged off the coat in a back alley and threw the whole thing in a skip. The blood had faded a little with snowmelt to patches of pink, but the overcoat was simply unsalvageable at this point. Her clothes beneath seemed much less conspicuous, a black turtleneck jumper and grey trousers. 

She still worried about the wound on her head, and whether the military would recognize her if she saw her, and as she walked through the streets it became clear that the military had a clear presence in the city - soldiers passed by infrequently in groups of two along all the main streets. Somewhere along the way, the invisibility seemed to have worn off - the woman noticed people glancing her way if only for a second before studiously ignoring her.

The woman ducked into a public toilet. It reeked, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, and it had a mirror and a measure of privacy. First, she looked at the head wound. The blood had matted up in her long black hair and streaked down her face - no wonder people had been ignoring her, she looked a state. 

She washed the worst of the blood off as best she could in the grimy handbasin, and was relieved to find that the wound looked worse than it was. Like most head wounds, it had bled profusely from a relatively shallow scrape. The dull ache in her head was more worrying - that was more likely a blunt impact and there was no telling what damage that might have done. 

She took inventory of the cuts and bruises all over and while some of them along her arms and legs were deeper, and had cut through clothing, they seemed to be healing rapidly, already clotted and faintly itchy.

She sighed and looked at the mirror. A stranger’s face looked back. It moved when she did, pulled all the faces she did and was almost certainly her face, yet it did not seem familiar. She lightly touched the throbbing area of her head and grimaced at the fresh wave of pain. 

Just because her face was not familiar to her, did not mean it would not be familiar to someone else in the city. Those soldiers were still everywhere and perhaps they were still looking for her. Better to not take any chances. Maybe with a haircut and a fresh set of clothes, she would look different enough?

The woman was taken by surprise when her reflection shimmered pink and then her hair was cut short into a bob, and her clothes changed into a light jacket suitable for the cool of the city and the holes had repaired themselves seamlessly. She blinked and touched her hair. It ended at her chin now, when before it had reached halfway down her back. She could feel the ends of it. She stared at her reflection for a moment, then with a shimmer of pink, the hair was long again, pulled back into a loose braid.

She smirked to herself. Her eyes flickered from a warm brown to moss green. Satisfied, she turned and limped out of the toilets. She slunk from back alley to back alley until she found a quiet corner and slumped down, hugging her knees to her body. She sat there for a long time, letting her breath even out and resting her aching body until her eyes closed and she drifted into an uneasy sleep.

She woke with a start of panic, taking in the grimy bricks and concrete surrounding her with a quick sweep of her eyes. She lay sprawled on the ground, and she scrambled to get her feet beneath her when an impact to her back sent her back to the ground again.  
  
“I said, gimme your money!” a male voice slurred from behind her.

She whipped her head around - a man, tall and slightly unsteady on his feet, leering down at her. She cast around for any sign of help, but the alley was deserted bar the two of them. She did, however, notice some rubbish littering the ground - some glass bottles, an offcut of pipe, some sheets of damp newspaper turning to mulch slowly.

Seizing the opportunity, she grabbed one of the bottles, hefting it at the man’s face with as much strength as she could muster. She did not watch to see it land, she was already clutching the pipe and springing up to her feet, ignoring the sharp throb in her head at the motion. She jabbed the pipe in the man’s stomach, relishing the soft exhale and grunt as the man doubled over. 

He was winded and disorientated, but it would not last long, and the woman took off down the alley as fast as she could sprint, discarding the pipe along the way. It was lucky that she had; when she reached a main street, she saw a couple of the patrolling military personnel and she knew a weapon would attract their attention.

She slowed her pace to a forcibly casual walk and tried to control her breathing as she walked along, hoping her disguise was simple enough to allow her to blend in with the few other people milling around the streets. 

The soldiers did not even spare her a glance. She breathed a little sigh of relief and checked her reflection in a darkened glass storefront. She looked a little grimy, a little damp and her new green eyes looked back at her from a face that was starting to become more familiar. In short, she looked wholly unremarkable. 

Her stomach gave a painful twist and she turned away from her reflection. A short wander later, she discovered a lit-up storefront with tables and chairs inside, with a counter at the far end and a menu hanging up on the wall behind it. She noticed a sign with an animal face and a red line through it beside the door. She went in, walking up to the counter.

“Hello, hun. What can I getcha?”

The woman frowned, a finger on her lips, scanning the menu briefly before pointing at the menu with a smile. The waitress folded her arms. 

“Is it really so hard to just spit it out?” she huffed, turning her back to start getting the food. “Take a seat and I’ll bring it over.”

The woman’s expression fell and her mouth opened. The waitress paid no attention, too busy with the cabinets of precooked and warmed food she was serving. The woman closed her mouth and found a booth against the wall where she could keep an eye on the door and look through the window. 

The city was quiet, only a few tired people walking past with obvious intent - people with places to be, working on automatic to get there. It was beginning to become lighter outside. The woman tracked the sounds of the waitress’ movement to her table and was not surprised when a plate laden with greasy warm food was deposited unceremoniously in front of her.

“Anything else?”

The woman looked down at the table as she shook her head. The waitress stomped off, muttering under her breath. 

The woman slowly worked her way through the bland, tough food, taking her time to watch the city outside as she chewed. The booth was hard against her back but not as hard as a brick wall, and the warmth of the building was starting to seep into her skin. After a while, warm, full of food, and relaxed, her eyelids began to grow heavy. Shaking herself awake, she reached into a pocket, then paused. Checked the other pocket. Both empty. The woman bit her lip and glanced behind at the waitress. She was distracted, busy flicking through her scroll.

Slowly, casually, the woman eased herself out of the booth and walked towards the door marked bathroom, closed herself in a stall and placed the palm of her hand on her face. She patted her pockets again with no more luck than the first time.

She glanced out of the stall - there was a high, thin window at the top of the wall and while the woman was fairly sure she could squeeze through, it was a clear foot or so out of her reach even if she stretched her arms up to it. Perhaps if she had something to stand on, she could make it…

Footsteps just outside the door were the only warning she got before it swung open. The woman held her breath as the waitress stomped into the bathroom, glaring around.

“That little bitch!” the waitress swore, looking around and clenching a fist.

The woman looked down at herself and saw nothing but the smooth tile of the floor. Evidently, the waitress saw nothing, either, as she stormed out, leaving the door swinging. The woman seized the opportunity to sneak out while the door was in motion and tiptoed through the empty seating area and out the front door before anyone could question how the door was opening by itself.

The next few days went no better for the woman. Finding safe places to sleep and food took up most of her day, and the rest of her time was spent desperately not trying to draw attention to herself, or defending herself on the odd occasion where she had unwittingly been noticed. Along the way, she had scavenged a few items from skips that needed a little repair but were otherwise useful, such as a sturdy umbrella with only half the spokes broken. It still provided shelter from the worst of the rain, but it also proved a valuable weapon when cornered. A jab to the solar plexus stunned most long enough to escape and if not, the woman was slowly becoming more proficient in using her size and speed to turn her enemy’s strength against them. Best of all, an umbrella was an inconspicuous item to carry in a city where it often rained.

Days blurred together to weeks and months and the woman had no clue how long she had been drifting from street to street, from petty theft to backstreet brawl, from ducking under the radar to inviting trouble, but eventually, she was noticed, and not by a drunken thug or mugger, either.

Another nondescript day and the woman sauntered casually into a small shop on a street corner. She had made alterations to her appearance today, with curly brown hair and blue eyes and a casual but clean outfit for the occasion. The shopkeeper seemed bored, only vaguely acknowledging her with a nod of his head, before turning his attention to some programme on his scroll. 

She spent a few minutes looking at the food on the shelves at her eyeline but made surreptitious darting glances around the shop. The counter the man stood behind was at the very back of the small space, and there was a doorway to the right marked as staff only that was left slightly ajar, revealing some steps down into a cellar. Heavy items like canned goods tended to be on floor height shelves, or shelves near the ceiling. They had a limited selection of fresh produce, mostly potatoes and apples, but dry food and snack foods, as well as a small selection of breads, were easily accessible.

The woman used her umbrella’s handle to hook around one of the tin cans and roll it towards the open door. It fell down the stairs with a collection of thuds and clatters, startling the shopkeeper. Predictably, he went to the open door to check what the noise was, and the woman seized her opportunity. A few bread rolls, a couple of apples and a jar of strawberry jam quickly disappeared off the shelves and into an invisible bag the woman had salvaged just for this purpose. Seeing that the man was still confused, the woman also grabbed a handful of the brightly coloured chocolate bars behind her. They rustled in her hand, drawing the shopkeeper’s attention.

The woman made a bolt for the door, followed by the angry shouts of the shopkeeper. The woman was faster, and the shopkeeper was reluctant to leave the shop, so a few side streets later she felt confident she had lost him. Of course, the sooner she could change her disguise, the safer she would be, and the dark alleys were secluded at most hours. She gave a little twirl as she changed into her most used appearance - black hair and green eyes, though she let her hair be unrestrained and faintly wavy for once.

“You practice that routine or is it just a spur of the moment thing?”

The woman whipped around. She was not alone.

A man wearing a long white coat, grey cravat and a bowler hat stood a few feet away. He carried a simple-looking cane which he did not appear to need to support himself and was busy lighting a cigar. The man did not seem angry, or even threatening, he was stood relaxed and only seeming to pay the woman half of his attention. The woman’s eyes lingered on the cane and she gripped her umbrella a little tighter - she was only too aware that an innocuous item could still be a formidable weapon and the reasons why someone may choose to have a less obvious weapon.

He puffed his cigar a moment and waited for a response. The woman watched. He tapped the ash off his cigar.

“Okay, let’s try this again. You’re a very talented woman and I could use someone with your kind of abilities as…a business partner.”

The woman raised an eyebrow and rested her free hand on her hip.

“I’m not exactly what you’d call the biggest fan of local law enforcement and I’m willing to bet you aren’t, either.”

The woman tilted her head a little, a faint nod as she listened.

“Of course, you may ask: what’s in it for me? Why should I care?”

The woman nodded once, relaxing her grip on her umbrella slightly.

“Quite frankly, you are wasted on petty little robberies, and what does it get you? Today’s food and a damp patch of alley? You’re smart; you know you can do so much more than this, and there’s a part of you that will try it. Not because you need to, but because you want to know if you can pull it off. Maybe you will, the first time, or the second time, but sooner or later, they will get wise to you and they will catch you.”

The woman frowned.

“But if you had someone who could watch your back? Someone with connections? Someone who has a bolthole in every corner of Remnant? Someone with a plan? You’d never have to worry about food again, never have to sleep on the streets again…and we can leave Mantle tonight. So, what do you say?” 

The woman walked forward, extending a hand with a smile. The man took it, giving a firm but brief shake.

“Apparently, not very much—”

The woman snatched back her hand, narrowing her eyes.

“Oh, don’t worry, I can talk enough for both of us, and you aren’t exactly shy about making your meaning clear. Though I do need a name to call you. Can’t exactly go around saying ‘hey you’ all the time.”

The woman put a finger to her lips, eyes titled up for a second, then let her hand fall with a shrug.

“If you aren’t bothered…how about ‘Neo’? As it’s a new name?”

The woman paused, a pink shimmer starting at her boots and working its way up to the top of her head. In its wake, she wore white calf-high boots, brown trousers, a long-tailed white coat with pink trim - a more elaborate and eye-catching look than she usually favoured. Even more striking were the two-toned colours of her hair and eyes - pink and brown, left and right.

“Neo…Politan, then?” the man observed with a quirk of an eyebrow.

Neo nodded with a broad smirk.

“A pleasure to meet you, Neo. The name’s Roman Torchwick, and we’ve got an airship to appropriate.”

**Author's Note:**

> I've not really seen anyone else mention it, but I (and my wonderfully talented wife) noticed something interesting in Pietro's photograph. Not only is Watts in it (made super obvious in that scene) but also a rather short woman with black hair, with a fringe similar to Neo's preferred appearance (she also uses that hairstyle in most of her disguises, just changing the colour to black and overall length longer or shorter) and smirking. 
> 
> A bit of over-analysis later, here we are.
> 
> As always, a big thanks to my wife who not only beta read and helped flesh this theory out, but also supports me when I say things like "What if Neo doesn't know she's the mystery scientist?" at 1 am and doesn't tell me to go to sleep.


End file.
